The Anubis Gates

Yes, Fairchild decided, I’ll have to be sure to put myself on the clown’s good side by telling him about that.

* * *

Jacky stood for quite a while beside the window Doyle had shut, just looking out over the indistinct rooftops, pinpricked here and there with the smoky red dot of a lantern or the amber lozenge of an uncurtained window. I wonder what he’s doing this minute, Jacky thought, what dark court he may be silently treading, in what gin den he may be buying some unsuspecting poor devil a drink. Or is he asleep in some garret out there… and what sort of dreams could he have? Does he steal those too, I wonder?

Jacky turned away and sat down at the table where the paper, pen and ink were waiting. Lean fingers picked up the pen, dipped the nib in the ink and, after some hesitation, began to write:

Sept. 2, 1810

My dear Mother—

While I am still not able to give you an address at which I can be reached, I can assure you that I am well, & getting enough to eat, & sleeping with a roof over my head. I know you consider it a dangerous and affected Lunacy, but I am making some progress at finding the man—if he can be called a man—that killed Colin; and although you have told me repeatedly that it is a task for the police, I will ask you once more to take my word for it that the police are not equipped to deal with—even acknowledge the existence of—the sort of man this is. I intend to kill him with the Minimum of Risk to myself, as soon as it may be Feasible, and then return home, where I trust I shall still find a Welcome. In the meantime I am among Friends, and am in far less danger than you probably imagine; and if you will, despite my present very regretful disobedience to your Wishes, keep for me the warmth and love you have so bountifully shewn me in the past, you will very deeply gratify your most loving and affectionate daughter,

Elizabeth Jacqueline Tichy.

Jacky waved the letter in the air until the ink was dry, then folded it up, addressed it, and dripped candle wax on it for a seal. She locked the door, got out of her baggy clothes and, just before swinging the hinged bed down out of the wall, peeled the moustache off, scratched her upper lip vigorously, and then stuck the strip of gummed, canvas-backed hair onto the wall.

CHAPTER 5

“Most persons break the shells of eggs, after they have eaten the meat. This was originally done to prevent their being used as boats by witches.”

—Francis Grose

Covent Garden on Saturday night displayed an entirely different character than it had shown at dawn—it was nearly as crowded, and certainly no less noisy, but where twelve hours ago ranks of coster’s wagons had lined the curb, there now gracefully rolled the finest phaeton coaches, drawn by ponies carefully matched in size and color, as the West End aristocracy arrived from their houses in Jermyn Street and St. James to attend the theatre. The paving stones were now being frenziedly swept every couple of minutes by ragged crossing sweepers, each jealously working his hard-won section of pavement, ahead of any pedestrian ladies and gentlemen that looked likely to tip; and the Doric portico of the Covent Garden Theatre, newly rebuilt only last year after burning to the ground in 1808, reared its grand architecture far more elegantly by lamplight and the gold glow of its interior chandeliers than it had in the hard brightness of the sunlight.